domingo, 24 de marzo de 2013

In all this time I have been thinking, analyzing and, at the end, I took the big step of changing my career.

A big step to take at the end of my first half of century of living. I have decided to change from journalism to teaching.

We thought that was easy. When I say ' we' I mean my wife, my mother in law and me.

First of all, there is a need for qualified professionals who would like to be involved in teaching.

Secondly, there is a need for teachers of Spanish because the UK government suddenly realised that Spanish it is one of the most frequently spoken languages in the world and that the economies of Latin American countries are doing much better, at the present time, than many in Europe.

Thirdly, it is easier to learn Spanish than Chinese. That was our logic.

So, there we go. We decided to embark on the journey.

But it was a mistake to thing that it was going to be straightforward. Nothing is easy in this country and teaching or trying to teach or becoming a teacher is now quite difficult.

First of all I had to convert my qualification into the British standard ones. And even though I had passed more subjects than the average UK student with distinction, my Bachelor degree and BA degree have been regarded as “mediocre".

Yes, mediocre, even when I had General History, General Literature, Maths, Geography, Spanish Grammar, English, physics, Chemistry and Astronomy. Can you imagine? Astronomy. Who studied Astronomy at normal school in this country?. In addition, the application system is a nightmare: very difficult to understand and complex.

Recently we discovered that the government department with the oversight of the Education System was offering advise on something that they called ‘ The Road in to Teaching'.

So we went, of course, my wife and me, to try to get some advice about how to make my dreams come true.

There we discovered that after all my qualifications and my British M.A I can be the perfect teacher but, and always there is a ‘but’, it will be difficult for me to apply for the best programme because, according to the British standard, my qualifications are deemed mediocre.

I wont be able to get a place at teacher training college as a Modern Languages

teacher unless I can speak another language preferably French which is very difficult

at this stage of my life.

There is another way. I can pay 9000 pounds if I can find a place as an English teacher

but I don’t qualify for a student loan because I haven’t been here for long enough.

However I’ll carry on trying and maybe next year I will have a new post saying that I’m

martes, 13 de noviembre de 2012

Fishing trip in the south of England.
We had some Pollocks. On the way back to land was very fogy and at some point was really dangerous because was impossible to see a thing, specially a little island that look like a submarine.

sábado, 10 de noviembre de 2012

After four years, I was again invited to the US embassy in London to wait for the result of the possible, at that time, re-election of their first black president, Barack Obama.

This time I was incognito, because on the last occasion, when people discovered that I was a Cuban from Cuba, they immediately ran away. At one point, I thought that I had some disease.

Despite the music, canapes and drinks I could feel the tension everywhere. People were quiet and talking nervously, at the TV screens displayed all over the building.

I am sure that for Obama the last four years have been a challenge to kick-start a system that was in bad shape.

Four more years.

He suffered attacks that look like the work of a Hollywood science fiction script: he was born in Kenya, is a communist revolutionary, or secretly a convert to Islam.

From the beginning of the election campaign, I, personally, disliked Mitt Romney’s declarations about immigration, the right to abortion and the necessity of a stronger America in international policy. For those reasons, I was supporting Obama's possible victory with all my heart.

Almost all night neck to neck.

I think that Romney's main mistake was that he disregarded the growing power of the minorities: Latins, blacks, young people and women.

Also, few weeks before the elections, he was criticised after the emergence of a secretly taped recording in which he derided 47% of Americans as dependent on the state.

Although he won the first debate on TV, he was unable to repeat the Denver triumph in the following two contests and was forced to take a step back from campaigning just a week before election day when Storm Sandy hit the US East Coast.

Thank's to Susan and Glenn for the invitation

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama rode a wave of broad support from minorities, women and moderates to win re-election.

At 3:00 am we left the Embassy, with both candidates still neck to neck in the race for the presidency; at 6:00am, I was one of the happiest men on earth after listening to Obama's victory speech on the BBC website.

“While the road has been hard, while the journey has been long … we know in our hearts, for the United States of America, the best is yet to come,” Obama told supporters in Chicago early on Wednesday.

martes, 30 de octubre de 2012

I Recently started a new job. It is not the job of my dreams, but in times of crisis it is good to know that at the end of the month one will have some money to contribute to the family expenses.

The job has some drawbacks, I have to get up very early in the morning, receive the minimum wage, and my colleagues speak all the time in their own language, Pakistani. This was very annoying at firs but It is alright now because I discovered that I can focus on my job and learn the process faster .

However , that doesn't mean that we have a bad relationship. On the contrary, they now call me Chacha Arnold, which means Uncle Arnold,in Pakistani, because I'm the oldest.

That friendly treatment began when I started to learn some words in their language.

In all the years living here, I have learned that the best way to build a relationship in an immigrant environment is to trying to learn, at least, a few words in your colleagues' language. That has always worked and it is working now.

I have also discovered that the majority of them are well educated. There are some people writing their PHd dissertation and my supervisor was a member of his country's national shooting team which is very impressive.

I still don't understand how it is possible that 70 percent of the shop staff are immigrants. The proportion is divided between a majority of Pakistanis and Indians and a few Caribbean Africans. The rest are European with only two British people.

This is surprising in a country where people are looking for work, shops and business are closing down and the unemployment figures are rising.

Maybe it is the survival instinct witch that drive every immigrant to work no matter what. Maybe that survivor instinct breeds dreams success.

This phenomenon not only happens in the developed countries but also in the developing countries where one can find specialist personnel from the countryside fighting to make their livings in the big cities.

So, despite right wing's comments and racist comments in some of the press immigrants labor are the backbone of this country. Does Britain need more of us?. Who knows?

Archivo del blog

Datos personales

I'm a Cuban journalist, with more than fifteen years experience. I have training as a cameraman and I use to film my own documentaries.

As a highly versatile and creative producer, I've made more than ten acclaimed documentaries and have for several years worked producing current affairs programmes mainly for network Cuban television.

For many years I presented a long-running, weekly series on Cuban TV which followed the work of the police and I have worked as a presenter and reporter on the national television news in Cuba for more than fifteen years.

As the News Editor of the busy newsroom for Canal Havana, one of Cuba's main national TV networks, I was responsible for all the channel's news output and managed a team of more than twenty including reporters, cameramen, editors, producers and administrative staff.

For the last three years I have filmed, edited and uploaded packages onto an international news website called VJ Movement online. I can email you links to view those packages if you'd like to see them.

I have good interpersonal skills and a pleasant and confident approach to every type of work, used to working under pressure and to deadlines. I'm an energetic and enthusiastic member of a team or I am happy to work as a lone reporter or cameraman.

Spanish is my mother tongue but am a fluent English speaker and I'm a specialist in Caribbean and Latin-American history.